In The End
by Mira-Jade
Summary: He could defeat every enemy. Every enemy but time. [Sesshoumaru, Rin] ONESHOT


**In The End**

**Genre: **General, Angst**  
Characters: **Sesshoumaru, Rin**  
**

**Disclaimer: **Inuyasha doesn't belong to me. I'm still plotting for Sesshoumaru though.

* * *

In the beginning there was a broken girl lying in the middle of the forest floor.

Against his better judgment he saved her.

Now he thinks that she saved him.

Yet Tenseiga beaconed, and he obeyed. The first breathe she took stole his.

He had shook away the uncomfortable feelings and rose again resolving to not think another thought. She had followed him; gap toothed, and grinning.

He didn't have the heart to turn her away.

OoO

Farther from the beginning she learned to speak.

It was another day, another monster to fight. Another battle she got caught in the middle of. Another silent scream that would send his heart pounding in dread at the thought that she might be hurt.

She had whispered thank-you.

Her voice was coarse from disuse, and muffled from where she had buried her head in his kimono, yet he had heard it none the less.

It shouldn't have made him as happy as it did.

OoO

Even farther on he learned that she loved flowers.

It had been one of the first things that she had told him. After that the floodgates that had built on the tip of her tounge released, and he was hard pressed to keep her silent.

He was content to watch her run circles around poor Jaken, and frolic happily in the vast fields of flowers. The sunlight glinted in her tangled hair, and the patterned yukata she wore shone against the cheery sunny meadow.

He was content to sit off to the side, and listened to her laughter on the wind.

It was moments like those that he truly felt at peace.

OoO

Eventually the beginning threatened to turn too the middle.

He had blinked and she had grown.

Grown into a beautiful, and painfully mortal sixteen year old.

Her hair was no longer a tangled mess; she kept it well groomed and combed – even on their long journeys to and from the House of the Moon. Her simple yukatas were longer, and covered a form that was more mature than he was willing to admit. She was taller too; her head almost reached his shoulder now.

He tried to say that he was amused that she was now the one to assist Jaken rather than the other way around. Yet it hurt deep down on some level that he refused to acknowledge.

She no longer collected flowers as much, yet she still loved butterflies.

In a small part of his mind that he has no control over he wishes that she were a butterfly, and never fly away.

For there was an enemy coming that he could not defeat. An enemy who cared nothing for no one.

It is an enemy he will lose her to.

Time.

OoO

The middle came creeping up faster and faster.

She was a woman now.

A mature human woman.

Ironically he noticed that she looked to be the same age as he. The only difference was that he would stay here, caught in time. He would stay young, even as his heart grew heavy and old. She would wither, and melt away until he was only left with a memory.

She said that it never scared her though.

She had been dead twice before.

He had thought that was his only problem, and then she brought _him_ home.

The human man was tall, and handsome, and he brought her flowers every day.

He would fade away as well.

Yet she loved him.

He could never deny her happiness, and as he watched the Monk preformed the odd human ceremony called a wedding something heavy settled in his heart.

Any parent knows exactly what it is.

OoO

The middle arrived quicker than he expected.

Her glow had faded, and she doesn't travel as much as she used too.

She can't have children, and he knows how much that hurt her. It hurt her relationship with her husband as well, for he wants a family badly, and soon he doesn't seem to care who plays the role of the mother.

She cried when she told him. Cried long and hard into his shoulder like she did when she was a child. He had stroked her hair, and told her that everything would be alright.

Latter that night a combination of poison claws, and Tenseiga's mercy made everything right again.

He never told Rin, yet it was worth it to see the joy in her eyes as her husband swore on every Kami he could think of that he would never betray her again.

He wasn't sure how to feel.

OoO

The middle wears on, and draws out.

The years come and go, and summer gives way to fall. Yet it is during Winter's cold breath that she starts to show sure signs of aging.

Her hair is streaked with white, and the suns that used to glow in place of her eyes dimmed.

He would do anything to restore that spark.

Her wrinkled hands are cold in his, and they feel so odd. He had never felt wrinkles before. He was truly scared at how fragile she had become.

One day her husband never came home, and Rin once again cried upon hearing of his death.

That day the glow in her eyes extinguished completely.

He was never able to restore it.

OoO

The middle is turning to the end.

His little butterfly had flown away, and he desperately tried to hold onto the memory of a little girl playing in the summer flowers.

She is weak now. She leans on his arm as he helps her around the rooms of her small house. She doesn't want to leave though. She is happy in that village close to the capitols of his lands, and dozen of children claim her as their grandmother.

He can't extinguish the light in her life.

Another cough racks through her shuddering lungs, and his heart leaps with very real fear.

He refuses to look to the end, and she smiles at him from a creased face framed by snowy locks.

He tells her he likes the color on her.

Tear shine in the eyes, and she whispers thank-you as her hands clutch the flowers the children have brought for her.

He tries really hard not to notice that they are wilting in her hands.

OoO

He was with her in the end.

Her breath rattles in her lungs, and her hands clutch his almost desperately. Jaken's eyes water in the corner of the room, and he feels to foreign urge to wipe at his own.

Wasn't a parent supposed to die before their child?

He didn't want to bury her yet. He didn't want to block her away from the sun that she loved so much. She would hate that, and even though something inside of him told him that he was being foolish he just couldn't help it.

She was the daughter of his heart, and he wasn't ready to let her go.

She can sense his distress in that uncanny way of hers. "You're scared." She whispered.

"And you are not?" He counters.

She grins wryly, even as it turned to a grimace and her body is once again wracked with vengeful coughs. "I've been dead before." She says, and tries to laugh as if it were some joke.

He stared at her horrified, and she tried to smile again. "I worry about you." She admitted shakily. "You'll be alone when I am gone."

He clutched her hand tighter. "You shouldn't waste you time on me." He said, and tried to keep his voice emotionless.

He failed miserably.

"I never did." She whispered, and she closed her eyes.

He can imagine that she was sleeping for a moment, yet he can't fool himself for long. He wanted to command her to open her eyes. He wants to tell her to hold on a little bit longer. He wants to be selfish like he knew he was.

When no reply was coming he leaned forward to bury his head in the crook of her neck. Underneath the smell of the healer's medicines, and the stench of decay is the smell of flowers. The scent that was distinctly Rin. He inhaled deeply as he listened to her heart flutter, and start to slow. In her veins her blood struggles to flow.

Her coarse hair hides the proof of his tears.

He listens until her heart beats no more.

Then there is just the end.

**MJ**


End file.
